


Broken Circle

by Arithanas



Category: I pirati della Malesia | The Pirates of Malaysia - Emilio Salgari
Genre: Childhood sexual abuse victim gets her revenge, Don't come arguing this kind of things didn't happen under Brittish or Portuguese Colonial rule, F/M, Gun Violence, I want to believe my childhood heroes wouldn't turn their backs to this kind of situation, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Non-Linear Narrative, Not What It Looks Like, Our heroes are still heroes, Utterly self-indulgent fic, Violence, dark themes, even if it doesn't look like that at the beginning, there is a slur here, ça va sans dire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 17:12:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19322548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/pseuds/Arithanas
Summary: Yanez de Gomera is approached by grieving parents. How he could refuse to mend the broken circle the British colonialism brought to their lives?





	Broken Circle

Yanez de Gomera narrowed his eyes and let his hand roam over that fragile shoulder. The girl shuddered at his touch and tried to pull away, but he kept her on his lap. The corner of the Portuguese’s mouth pulled up before he put the child’s hand on his chest. She was a sweet, young Nyonya girl. Her young years wouldn’t reach the score in a long time. The male _sarong_ around her girth posed a risk of showing her young, budding nudity. Her long, straight hair smelled like fresh flowers. Yanez passed his hands through those dark strands.

He trained his merciless blue-gray eyes into her brown, almond-shaped ones.

Around him, Englishmen and Dutchmen clinked their glasses and lit up their cigars. One gentleman crossed his legs and let his left hand rest in his lap. Their laughter sounded dry. Yanez thought of confused orangutans in the jungle and he laughed aloud at the image. The members of the Lotus Blossom club joined him. The general dint allowed him to whisper some words in the girl's perfect, dainty ear.

Her mouth opened in a perfect circle.

Her teeth shone inside the rose petals of her lips.

Her whole body shivered.

This sweet girl was an arch ready to let its knocked arrow out. Yanez pulled her right leg over his left one. He kissed her over the bridge of her nose as he guided her hand to his crotch. She pulled away and Yanez restrained her with his right hand between her tense shoulder-blades.

“Don’t be skittish, little one,” Yanez said aloud. “Soon, you’ll get your satisfaction too.”

The men around them leaned forward, laughing aloud at those salacious words. Their eyes glinted with eager greed. Yanez’s quick eye caught one fidgeting with the fly of his trousers and his smile was hard and cruel. His hand didn’t let the girl go until her fingers clasped around the hard piece inside his trousers.

“Remember that I love you, Yeo Bulat…”

* * *

“There is no need for introductions, sir,” the woman cast down her eyes. A string of pearls hedged her perfect bun on top of her head. The light danced on the jade wings of her mother-and-child, three verse golden brooch. “Please, feel at ease.”

Yanez noticed the intricate jejarum pattern on her _kebaya_ ’s sleeves and the delicate mother-of-pearl inlay in the armrest where his arm covered with a dirty seafarer shirt rested. Baba-Nyonya houses were always so ornate that his eyes often wandered in gleeful amusement. This time, his sharp mind forced some discipline into his roaming spirit.

Yanez took a deep breath, fished out a cigarette from his pocket and tried to make sense of the situation. A young man approached him and offered him a flame to light a long Congreves with a deep bow.

The woman waited until Yanez took the first puff and crossed his legs. The man behind her was less patient and pulled the round collar of his sober black jacket with green dragons. A soft touch of her hand in his arm dispelled his unrest. Yanez wondered what this strange pair wanted with him as he swung his heavy duty boot about. In a corner, a monk lit up his pipe and toyed with his tobacco pouch. Another clean shaven, well dressed Chinese man was waiting by the table. His pursed lip and haughty brow expressed his concern.

“What’s the occasion?” Yanez started, blowing out a plume of blue smoke.

“I know the White Tiger is busy,” the woman replied. “Many undertakings distract his mind. So much treasure to move. Our problem is different. Completely different. If you could be generous enough to hear a mother’s plea…”

Yanez leaned back and took a long draft. His shoulders relaxed and his eyes narrowed at each word the woman uttered.

* * *

“... of course, we would be delighted to have some products imported from Macau.” Lord Edmund Kempthorne said as he crushed his cigar and fetched another one from a silver box. With an elegant movement, he offered the contents to his interlocutor. “We often hear how sweet the exotic fruit is.”

Luíz Gonçalo de Castello Branco e Silva picked up a small flake from his white jacket and shook his head a little. “No, thank you. I can pick some young darker meat if you so prefer.”

“As you wish.” Edmund lit up with a nervous movement. “For the time being, Macau girls are enough.”

The slight twitch of his right eye was distracting. The collar and the cuff of his shirt were loose. He shook his leg with nervous rhythm. The Portuguese man also noticed a whiff of smoke from the British merchant and that was not the dry aroma of tobacco.

“Our members are in Asia for a reason. If negros could arouse their desire they would be in Angola.”

“Exotic fruit.” Luíz Gonçalo said before he sipped his piping hot tea with the ease of someone used to deal with the East India Company. “Speaking of that, are you ready to provide me with a Nyonya girl, one of eight years old, as you declared in your last communication.”

“The sweetest of it,” Edmund reassured. “It’s not whole.” A nasty smile appeared on his lips. “Regretfully.”

Luíz Gonçalo nodded, full of understanding. The tea sloshed against the brim and his eyebrows descended a line.

“Some other members took a bite of it.” Edmund sniggered and shook the ash from his cigar. “Well, several bites. But it’s fresh enough to enjoy.”

“That’s fresh enough for me.” Luíz Gonçalo put his tea in the table. He played with his ascot for a bit and put his hat on. “I’ll bring you ten Macanese girls and I’ll take the Nyonya one.”

“Of course.” Edmund Kempthorne smiled with passing amity. “Just one little thing before you go, Silva…”

With the hand on the brim of his hat, Luíz Gonçalo waited for the next word.

“You must bite your fruit in front of the club.”

“Understandable. How else would you trust me?”

He tipped his hat and turned around. He left the small eatery with measured steps. To the unwise, he was the spirit of calm. The canny observer would know better. His chin trembled, his fist clenched his walking stick and his shoulders squared.

For many a man, that was the image they carried to their graves.

* * *

“About time!” Sandokan shouted by way of greeting from the middle of the lake.

Yanez took the shirt off his back with one liquid movement. The trousers follow suit. The water splashed the heavy boots when Yanez dived into the cold water. Sandokan swam to him and hugged him. Four days was enough for them to develop a longing for each other.

For a moment, it looked like they were to embrace, but Sandokan pushed his body out of the water threatened to dunk his friend. Yanez moved to the side, splashing all around. When Sandokan emerged and turned his head looking for an explanation. Yanez locked his eyes with his brother. Sandokan’s brow knitted immediately.

“Something happened.”

“Hush and welcome me home.”

Sandokan complied, pulling Yanez closer. Yanez felt Sandokan’s chin in his shoulder and he immediately felt at home. Sandokan pressed him closer and Yanez’s flesh stirred. He darted his eyes up. Sandokan’s eyes narrowed but he put a kiss on the top of his friend’s head.

“You must be hungry…”

“I would rather swim for a while,” Yanez retorted. Time was running short, his plan was developing. Yet, Sandokan’s hands on his body were a pleasure he didn’t want to go without.

“You have to tell me everything,” Sandokan agreed and let Yanez float in the cool water with his hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t I do always?”

* * *

Rain fell on top of the small house. Drops danced over the slate before falling to the courtyard. Yanez de Gomera lit up the fifth cigarette of the night.

His face was stone cold as the woman promised him all the family treasure and so much more. He sighed, raised his open hand to make her stop, and put both feet on the floor, opening his legs wide.

“Madame, we will discuss those details after your girl is safe in your arms.” Yanez needed a second to think, so he took another draft. A long one, to quell the unrest in his gut. The bitter smoke left a sweet taste in his mouth filled with bile.

“I don’t know what else to offer.”

“Information, madame.”

He passed his fingers over his mustache. His mouth was parched. They hadn’t had the mind to offer him a drink; Yanez couldn’t blame them. Those parents had been polite enough, being the circumstances as dire as they were.

“What if she has been hurt?” Yanez felt vile once those words tumbled out his mouth, but the question was unavoidable. “I know something about stolen goods. I know that everything that can happen, happens. There are always damaged goods in the loot.”

The woman went pale and her back became straight. The man behind her dropped his shoulders and Yanez noticed the way his fingers trembled. The rich merchant dressed in the European fashion let out an angry tirade in Mandarin. Yanez was not familiar enough with the language, but he felt and shared the hurt in his voice.

The woman heard her enraged relative with exquisite courtesy.

She nodded.

Finally, she spoke some short, respectful words. One of them was _nasrani_ and Yanez felt it like a slap.

The man went silent and took a step back to sulk in a darker corner.

“I can see my brother and I were not your first option.”

“You are our last hope.”

“She never damaged goods.” The man with green dragons in his jacket spoke words in broken English to match his broken heart. “She peerless treasure. Always.”

Yanez nodded and took out his hip flask and drank pure whiskey. He shivered and mopped his brow with shaken hand.

“Does she speak only Mandarin?”

“She speaks Baba Malay and English too.”

Yanez raised his eyes to the man and nodded. “A treasure she is.”

The man nodded back. His eyes were dry and his lips chapped. Something behind him caught Yanez's eye and the tip of his tongue felt the roof of his mouth. Somehow his eyes missed the cases full revolvers and rifles the first time he surveyed the room.

“Tell me, Madame, Yeo Bulat knows how to shoot?”

* * *

The Lotus Blossom club. A gentleman’s club. A club for gentlemen who like to pluck the flower when it’s still grass.

The monster lair.

Luíz Gonçalo de Castello Branco e Silva, dressed in white with a golden ascot and a wide white hat, called at the first light of the day. Inside his carriage, a dozen young girls dressed in wide satin shirts and black pants. Their hair in tight buns crowned their bowed heads. They clung to each other and dared not to make any sound.

The building was atop a hill. The grass extended from the gate to the steps and all the way around. Luíz Gonçalo noticed the lack of dogs or even of a cricket field. Lord Kempthorne was waiting for them by the steps. In his arms, almost carelessly, a shotgun rested. His greeting was a sober tip of the hat.

Luíz Gonçalo descended from his carriage and signaled the girls to make a line. Lord Kempthorne surveyed them as if they were chattel. He inspected her legs. He felt her shoulders. He made a girl see him in the eye and she tried to bite his hand.

“This filly should be a pleasure to ride.”

“I would like to inspect my treasure, if you please.” Luíz Gonçalo said, averting his eyes from the girls. His hand settled the waist of his trousers to his satisfaction.

“Of course,” Edmund tilted his head and a couple of elderly women came with rushed, small steps. “I wouldn’t want to wait if I were in your place. Tea?”

“At your convenience.”

With a nod, they both started toward the house. The women herded the girls to the side of the mansion. Luíz Gonçalo spared a last look to the girls. The oldest of them met his gaze with narrow eyes. Her hand touched her own waist and nodded. Edmund was prattling as if they both have not committed a crime in the eyes of God and the whole humankind.

* * *

Yanez de Gomera took the care to keep his arm over Sandokan’s shoulders all the time while he explained his delay. Three or four times, Yanez had to force him to sit down and to pay attention again. It took him three whole hours to explain the situation between bouts of impatience, sips of brandy and cigarette smoke.

“I’m offended,” Sandokan muttered as he stole a sip of Yanez’s drink. “I’ll do it for free.”

“We better don’t offend the Peranakan community. We might need them later.”

“We need to send a scout.”

“Padada is there.”

“I’ll burn the place down!” Sandokan roared without any warning and punched the grass between his legs repeatedly. “Those men have no right to mercy. No right at all. What kind of beast steals a child from the parents? You can’t find an animal cowardly enough to bear such purposes toward a CHILD! And what was her parents’ crime? To be rich? No, you know as well as I do that their crime was not to be white…”

“You have my blessings,” Yanez lit up another cigarette. He knew perfectly well that once his brother started a diatribe, there was no power on Earth capable to stop him.

Sandokan sprang to his feet and continued his ranting in equal parts of English, Malay, and incoherent, frustrated grunts. He walked in long strides. His hand clutching the handle of the _kris_ and his headdress threatened to fall from its place by the depth of his scowl. The long _sampin_ whipping his bare legs supplied handsomely the lack of a tail.

Yanez leaned across and crossed his ankles. His eyes roamed the leaves of the trees and the clouds racing through the sky. Sandokan’s incensed words were the kind of serenade that his spirit needed that particular night.

Sandokan got tired of his rant and kneeled next to Yanez’s head. His mighty fist made the dust flew and his hair fell around his friend’s head. His voice had the roar of the surf in a tempestuous night.

“And you keep your silence!”

“I refuse to get between you and your righteous indignation.” Yanez puffed again with slow leisure. “Besides, I have a favor to ask from you and you are not going to like it a bit.”

“How so?” Sandokan asked with a wide, cruel grin.

“If my plan is to succeed, Little brother,” Yanez murmured with his eyes lost in the rising moon, “you are to find me a good dozen of tiger cubs…”

The smile waned bit by bit as the weight of his most beloved friend’s request dawned on him. Sandokan sat on his feet by degrees, bent by the magnitude of the sacrifice his brother was asking from their band.

“Ask me for the moon!”

“I need a key. Monies won't pass muster with this crew.”

Sandokan sat in silence. His fists rested on his knees. The frown of his forehead became even deeper.

His head bowed to the inevitable.

* * *

The best selection of orchids filled the club garden with color and aroma. The tall trees in its border provided both privacy and cool shade. Lord Edmund Kempthorne, reclined in the shade, smoke a pipe of fragrant and sticky opium.

The girl waited by one fountain with a statue of a satyr kidnapping a baby. Luíz Gonçalo sneered at the image and took a small black lacquered box from the pocket inside his jacket. He opened it and offered the contents to the girl.

“I brought you a gift.”

She refused to even look at the bright, blue pea sweet cake that it was meant to be her signal. Luíz Gonçalo put the little box in the bench and took a lock of her long, loose hair and tucked behind her ear. She shivered at the touch, but she didn’t raise her eyes in defiance.

Luíz Gonçalo looked over his shoulder at his stupid host and smiled.

“Mama taught you well,” he praised and touched her shoulder with tender care. “ _Pandeh, pandeh nona_.”

The girl raised her eyes slowly. Her eyes opened with delayed surprise, but her lips remained closed. Her fingers trembled in her lap.

“He told me your name is Akan,” Luíz Gonçalo commented as he used his body as a shield between the girl and her tormentor. “I bet that’s not your name.”

She stared at him with solemn eyes. Cold, haunted eyes. In spite of that look, Yanez bet her broken soul could still bear the weight of hope.

“I know your name,” Luíz Gonçalo whispered and his finger traced a perfect circle in the nude skin of her lean shoulder.

Her face lit up like the main lantern of a lighthouse. She tried to get up. She tried to speak. His hand on her shoulder kept her in her place and his hard eyes dried the river of words before it could leave her mouth.

“I can go or I can make your problems go away,” Luíz Gonçalo explained as he took her right hand and guided it to the fly of his trousers.

“ _Kus semangat_!” Yeo Bulat exclaimed with faint voice when she noticed how hard the contents inside the garment were.

“I just want you to know how much I love you.” His eyes were locked with hers. He towered over her, yet there was a plea in his voice. “Do you want me to show you how much I love you tonight?”

She cast her eyes down and clasped her hands in her lap. Her knuckles were white and her shoulders slumped. After a while, she spoke. Her voice sounded serene when she opened her mouth.

“Show me.” She sighed and a couple of tears felt in her hands. “Show me.”

* * *

The men laughed when she bowed her head next to his lap. Her body slide from his knee to the floor. Yanez de Gomera interlaced his fingers behind his head and let her do as her ardent spirit pleased.

She got up, eyes bright with retribution.

She turned around, with straight, proud back.

She raised her arm, heavy with justice.

Edmund Kempthorne gasped in alarm but the hot kiss of lead came too quickly for him to realize he was facing an avenging angel.

The room went quiet for a second. Blood dripped from the host torn crotch. Guests stared at the girl with disbelief.

One of the Chinese girls cried as soon as the noise from the gun died off. She pulled a knife from her waistband and plunged it into the first back that came to her hand.

Yeo Bulat aimed again.

Windows broke. Furious mothers, _parang_ in hands, rushed in to recover their kids. Fathers came behind them, torches ready.

The second shot went unheard.

Blood seeped through the tablecloths. Bodies fell over crushed teacups. Unattended cigars smoldered on the Persian rugs.

Sandokan entered the room through the broken window, surveying the carnage with a dispassionate eye. His hand rested in the handle of his _parang_. The emerald in his headpiece reflected the lights of the fire his men were building all over the place.

Edmund Kempthorne, the monster, fell heavily into a broken knee before a third shot shattered his shoulder.

Yanez got up his seat, walked towards the child. She was holding the gun with both hands. Her arms were trembling and her fingers were white. Relieved tears fell over her pale cheeks.

“I can kill him for you.”

“No.”

Yanez smiled and bowed his head. It was her right to assay the amount of pain her tormentor should suffer. He took off his jacket and wrapped it about her shoulders. He removed the pistol from her hand and secured it in the band of his trousers, for she had no need for it anymore.

Sandokan walked to them amidst the chaos of screaming Dayaks and dying Europeans. He bowed his head in greeting. Yeo Bulat corresponded, shaken, but in control of herself once again.

“I’m here to take you home.”

“I’m glad.” Her English sounded insecure. “I miss my mom.”

Yanez signaled her door and she took the first step home. Sandokan and his friend walked half a step behind her, watching over her. They climbed down the steps of the building, feeling the heat of the raging fire on their backs. In the lawn, the women were finishing the killing of those who keep the children captive. Two old European women lay slain in the grass and four Hindu women too.

A group of twenty girls and boys waited for them by the gate. They were barely clothed and starving by the look of it. Yanez shook his head; Sandokan pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yanez…”

“Little brother?”

“I’ll do it all again,” there was sad indignation in his voice. “For free.”


End file.
